Their world or ours?

Economic recessions are an inescapable feature of the capitalist system, a system that cannot ensure the harmonious growth of the economy, cannot ensure work and well being for all the working people. The strategy of the employers in a crisis is the intensifying exploitation, further increasing the concentration of capital and production, carrying out various changes to create the best conditions for the extraction of maximum profits, shifting capital to the areas of maximum capitalist profit whether at home or abroad and stepping up its contention for markets and sources of raw materials with its rivals (which often leads to military conflicts)

The bosses shift the burden of the crisis onto the backs of the working people through the cutting of real wages, imposition of redundancies, the intensification of labour through speed-ups etc., the imposition of worse working conditions, and so on. , facilitated by the pressure of the vast reserve army of the unemploye. State expenditure is being transferred away from social spending such as on health, education, welfare and other areas in order to boost the profits of the corporations, and the burden of direct and indirect taxation is being increased to cover the increased state expenditure as a whole.

The economists pretends that they have the solution to the crisis and promise “recovery” provided the workers accept the burden of the crisis as the condition of ensuring recovery. But in reality those supposedly in charge has no control. Their demand that the workers accept further unemployment and further speed-ups and further reductions in real wages, social services, benefits, etc., is simply a demand that the workers accept still more of the burden of the crisis on their shoulders so as to ensure the recovery of profits which is the real concern of the employing class.

The wealthy have no solution to the crisis the working class should not harbour any illusions about “recovery”. The motive of capitalist production is profit and the only issue of “recovery” for the bourgeoisie is recovery of profits. Such “recovery” will not alter at all the condition of the working class as wage slaves, or change the conditions of the exploited in relation to the exploiters. In fact, the recovery of the profits of the capitalists can only take place on the basis of the further intensification of exploitation, the further impoverishment and ruin of the masses of the people, with a higher level of the permanent army of the unemployed, an increase in the impoverishment and immiseration of the working class.

In order to force through its programme, the rich and powerful are launching a savage offensive against  workers and their trade-union rights. The ruling class have escalated their efforts to defeat and undermine the workers’ struggles. Capitalism rests upon this fact that there is a class of men who are deprived of everything and consequently are forced to sell their labour.

Crisis is an inherent feature of capitalism and cannot be eliminated without eliminating the root, the capitalist system. The anarchy of production and crisis will not be eliminated without putting an end to the capitalist system, thereby removing the contradiction which is at its root, the contradiction between the social character of production and the private capitalist appropriation. The motive of capitalist production is the securing of maximum profits. Production of goods is in fact an incidental aim of capitalism, as is employment. The capitalist class organises production for the purposes of increasing profits. When conditions are such that profits can be increased by increasing production, the capitalist does so, and when conditions are such that profits can only be increased by cutting back production to keep up the price, then that is what the capitalist does. Thus if it serves to increase profits to increase the numbers of workers in production, then this is done; but if profits can only be increased by intensifying exploitation, getting more or the same amount of work out of fewer workers, then this is done instead. These fundamental features of the capitalist system cannot be eliminated without removing the capitalist system itself. They are following the policy necessitated by the capitalist system, one which would be followed in one form or another by any capitalist government, as shown by the record of Labour governments. All the capitalist parties, all the parties dedicated to the continuation of the capitalist system of wage slavery, are against the most basic rights and interests of the working class.

The apologists of the ruling class do everything to try to ensure that the idea of the transformation of the social system is not even discussed. They pretend that this crisis is not the result of the capitalist system but merely a result of “erroneous policies” of this or that individual, manager or government. The right wing preaches submission to economic “realities”. The left wing preach reformism to the workers. Each wing promising “prosperity for all” that never materialises.  Revolution is not only a possibility, it is a necessity.  Unless this is done the workers will not be able to avert the grave dangers the capitalist system threatens.

Capitalism expresses class-ownership and production for profit. Its destruction involves the change from individual or company ownership to the ownership of the community at large. Wage-slavery being finally done away with by the abolition of capital. The socialist commonwealth, liberates the individual from all economic, political and social oppression, would provide the basis, for real liberty and for the full and harmonious development of the personality, giving full scope for the growth of the creative faculties of the mind. There is a tendency to vulgarise the idea of socialism, to reduce its meaning to a mere mechanical alteration of the property system and the introduction of a state-planned economy. The State, as the owner of banking industry, agriculture and transport becomes the universal employer, the universal landlord. It controls everything on which the fate and happiness of the individual citizen depend.  The citizen is dependent on the State as regards employment, housing, supplies, amusement, educational and transport facilities. A conflict with the State might affect the citizen as an employee, tenant, etc. This enormous power of the State over the individual citizen must needs call forth or strengthen tendencies towards a dictatorship. Therein lies the chief danger of State capitalism. It hides an abyss into which the nation may easily tumble, sinking back into barbarism instead of making its way further towards the sunny heights of socialism. State capitalism does not yet solve any of the outstanding problems. It does not abolish crises, the classes, the wage system. Under State capitalism there is production of commodities for sale, not production for use.

The Fight For Socialism

To cut a long story short, it can be said that the class of persons owning the tools or the means of production is the ruling class. Socialism is a word which came into general use in the 19th century, and it has always been understood to signify a new state of affairs in opposition to capitalism. The use of adjective "scientific" is used to distinguish the concept of socialism from the schemes of these utopians and idealists who based their plans upon abstract principles, rather than the historical growth of society resulting from the friction between rival classes. Many great thinkers in the past, dissatisfied with the conditions of their times, had drafted out plans for a re-modeling of affairs. Some of them put their p1an into practice and experimented with communes. The Labour Theory of Value, the Theory of Surplus Labour, and the Materialist Conception of History as the three sides of scientific socialism.  Though the expectations of early Marxists have not been fulfilled,  the theory explains its own mistakes. Vain are the hopes of peace between the oppressed and the oppressors.  In its endeavour to increase its profits capitalism force the workers to take up a militant attitude upon the industrial and political fields.

The capitalist who does not accumulate, expand, is doomed. The winner is always the capitalist whose machines are better and more modern, whose plant and production system are more efficient, who can buy raw materials in larger quantities and therefore at lower unit cost. In other words, the large-scale enterprise based on a big capital has all the advantages over the small-scale enterprise based on a modest capital. The small-scale enterprise cannot stand up in the competitive race for the market. It goes bankrupt or is absorbed by the large-scale enterprise.

 What about enterprises that are approximately equal in size and efficiency, and therefore equally situated as competitors? They, too, must engage in the competitive race. The winner is the one that speeds up its production to lower unit cost and intensifies its exploitation. This last it can do, and does, in several ways. It lengthens the working day. It reduces the wages of the workers. It increases the productivity of the workers so that they make the same amount in less time. It cuts down on operational costs such as health and safety  on the job or in making less comfortable the workers conditions . To win the race for the market, the capitalist must do some or all of these things. If he does not, he loses. A capitalist  cannot survive if he just stands still, or continues at the old pace. Survival under capitalism – just survival – demands expansion, demands accumulation of more and more capital, demands, therefore, more and more profit, without which accumulation is impossible. Profit makes accumulation possible; accumulation makes profit necessary. No profit – no accumulation; no accumulation – no production. That is how it is, and that is how it must be under the capitalist mode of production. To live, capital must accumulate. To accumulate, capital must yield profit. So fierce is the drive of capital for profit, that it turns the world upside-down, if need be, in the hunt for cheap labor, on the basis of the lowest possible wages and poorest working conditions. Capital will shrink from nothing in the pursuit of profits. It spends millions of dollars for efficiency experts to work out all kinds of methods and systems to intensify labor by raising the work-rate of workers, paying little heed to the  broken bodies and exhausted minds. Capitalism is a ruthless devourer of human life. When socialists explains the nature of capitalism, we show how it destroys the humanity of wage-workers and their families.

Socialism is a system based upon conscious planning of production by associated producers (nowhere does Marx ever say: by the state), made possible by the abolition of private property of the means of production. As soon as that private property is completely abolished, goods produced cease to be commodities. Value and exchange value disappear. Production becomes production for use, for the satisfaction of needs, determined by conscious choice (ex ante decisions) of the mass of the associated producers themselves. Mankind will be organised into a free federation of producers’ and consumers’ communes.